Production

April 15, 2011

Visual Guide to Westeros

HBO has unveiled a Visual Guide to the new Game of Thrones. Featuring interactive maps—including an excellent look at the coast of Essos and the placement of most (but not all) of the Free Cities, apparently based on GRRM’s own maps—and details on various characters, organization, and history, it’s a great guide to the TV show’s version of the novels. There are little changes, here and there, and it’ll be fun spotting some of the departures from the setting’s history in particular.

Ah-ha, this is the last Artisans featurette before the premiere on the 17th. Graphic artist Jim Stanes discusses a subject near and dear to our hearts: Heraldry and Maps. This video’s full of some of the heraldic images I had a sneak peek at when I visited the production in Belfast, and now everyone else can see them too!

The latest (and last before the premiere?) Artisans is now up, featuring the production designer Gemma Jackson as she gives viewers a detailed look at the throne room in the Red Keep… and, of course, the Iron Throne:

Boy, these things are piling up! A quick roundup of the latest reviews, interviews, and other Game of Thrones-related items:

One of the biggest pieces of news is HBO’s innovative plans for airing the first episode of the series. After the initial airing at 9PM, two follow up airings will take place back-to-back. More amazingly, however, on Monday HBO will air the series on six of its channels simultaneously at 9PM. The cumulative viewership numbers should be quite remarkable, if everything goes to plan. More information can be found at The Hollywood Reporter.

The Atlantic has begun a series of five posts with takes on the series. First up, Alyssa Rosenberg, followed by Adam Serwer. These are particularly thoughtful pieces, written by writers more generally involved in cultural and political commentary than television criticism.

David J. Peterson, creator of the Dothraki language for the show, attended a screening in Los Angeles and wrote a report.

For those HBO subscribers lucky enough to have access to HBO GO through their cable provider, the Wall Street Journal has revealed very interesting news: some episodes of the series will air on HBO GO even before they air on television! No specific details of this initative, such as how much earlier (an hour? a day?), are provided in the article. However, it does have a lot of very interesting things to say about the prospects of the show…

The Wall Street Journal has a great article on the production of HBO’s Game of Thrones, which notes a couple of tidbits likely to make fans salivate. First up, a hint as to where the production may do some filming if it goes forward:

¨Before production began, fans posted renderings online of how they imagined colorful King’s Landing, the lush, chilly Winterfell and the eerie blood-covered Castle Black. “I of course ignored all of that because I wanted to make it my own world,” production designer Gemma Jackson said from Croatia, where she was scouting locations for season two before heading to Turkey.

According to a short piece in Variety, HBO’s Game of Thrones is likely to be HBO’s biggest seller in international markets! Citing that Boardwalk Empire, which was HBO’s best-selling series to international markets (with licenses sold to some 160 countries), the article notes:

Bidding wars broke out among European webs determined to licence the show… Schreger, said, “We knew we had a pair of hot properties in ‘Boardwalk Empire’ and ‘Game of Thrones,’ but buyers’ interest in ‘Thrones’ is phenomenal.”

The article goes on to note some new international market sales that have been eagerly awaited: TNT Serie will air the show in Germany, while Telenet will broadcast it in Belgium. Showtime in Australia is now fully confirmed, as well. The article adds that deals are in the works for Italian, Japanese, and Russian market sales.

We’re not going to review the show just yet after the episodes we saw, although we hope we might give some vague first impressions soon, but we feel compelled to make a special note to highlight just how amazing the opening titles for the show are. Gorgeously produced, innovative, and best of all completely acknowledging the breadth and scale of the setting. And for our money, it’s much cooler than what the pilot script allegedly described, which was simply a raven flying over a map of Westeros from point to point; that was a good idea, but this ... this is inspired.

Via MSN.com, we now have the episode titles for episodes 5 through 7. Episode 5 is “The Wolf and the Lion”, episode 6 is “A Golden Crown”, and episode 7 (this is a new one for Linda and I) is, “You Win or You Die”. With GRRM’s episode 8 title of “The Pointy End” already known, this just leaves the final two episodes to be titled.

Entertainment Weekly is leading the way among the major media, being what can be considered the first US media out of the gate with major coverage of Game of Thrones, with a featured article in this week’s issue, an open call for fans to submit questions for the cast and crew, and an exclusive gallery of ten new photos. We expect a lot more content is coming in short order.

Finally, on a very different note, here’s this fascinating article on Mixonline—a website for audio industry professionals—regarding the sound mixing and editing on Game of Thrones. We do love these behind-the-scenes pieces.

Back in September, Northern Ireland Screen, who played a leading role in bringing Game of Thrones to Northern Ireland, had a board meeting where it was revealed that a “2nd series for Game of Thrones was already under strong consideration.” It went on to state that “securing” that season to be produced in Northern Ireland could well depend on the NI Screen hurrying along the process of expanding studio space by Summer 2011.

Variety has a very interesting report on film and television production in Northern Ireland which touches on HBO’s Game of Thrones, and includes some interesting facts and figures. As we’ve previously discussed, the show’s budget has always been impressive, probably in the top quintile of all of HBO’s regular hour-long dramas (Rome certainly being at the very top end), but it seems it may have been even bigger than we were led to believe.

HBO has snuck out a new Artisans video, this one with Gorden Fitzgerald, the props master. Some new shots from various locations, including a late-AGoT scene at Castle Black, and more glimpses of the Hand’s tourney, the Dothraki encampment, and more. Embed below:

HBO has now released several of the new featurettes which we’ve previously posted about as being available at TV.com, both the Baratheon and Lannister featurettes… and one that was not available there, featuring House Targaryen, which you can see embedded below. 720p is always nice to see!

To keep on top of the latest Youtube videos, we very highly recommend subscribing to GameOfThrones, the official Youtube account for the series